


Pull Me Back To Land

by cuddlydreamsonrainydays



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Figurative Drowning, Jemily - Freeform, Voice, you should listen to life saver by sunrise avenue while reading this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-05 15:39:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6711022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuddlydreamsonrainydays/pseuds/cuddlydreamsonrainydays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emily is drowning in a pain too numb to drink away. JJ's voice is the life vest that keeps her above the surface. Somehow, they'll survive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pull Me Back To Land

It had not been a particularly hard case. Of course it had still been hard, every case was; but not particularly. They returned late that night, or rather early in the morning. No lights were on in Emily’s flat, and she couldn’t be bothered to turn them on.

In her mind, every case, every victim every dark memory, melted into a grey, sticky mess that filled her up slowly, drowning her.

Drowning. Maybe that was the word that described the situation best. She was drowning in a pain that was too numb to drink it away.

Emily Prentiss had always been her own life vest. As an ambassador’s daughter, she had (all while growing up in what were objectively some of the most dangerous countries in the world), grown up in surroundings about as dangerous as a kiddy pool. Her mother was there to bail her out of every hint of trouble she got into. But, when one day she leaned over the edge of the thin plastic that protected her, she discovered that her safe haven had been floating in the middle of a vicious ocean all along.

She’d learned how to be her own life vest, how not to drown. The most important thing in the world, her world, was not to lose control. Never.

And yet, this night, she found herself on the cold, hard floor of her living room. It was February, and still as cold outside as it had been in January, the icy wind making the breaths of lonely night time walkers visible as clouds emerging from their mouths. There was nobody who could’ve turned the heating on for her, and her flat was cold.

Her hands were cold, too, her fingers turning a light blue that she studied fascinatedly in the dim light of a streetlight outside her window. Her breathing was uneven, and the oxygen she pumped into her lungs as frantically as her exhaustion let her was never enough. There was not a drop of water in her mouth, but she was drowning, drowning while her head felt like a desert and her throat was made of sand.

Emily Prentiss had always been her own life vest, but the ocean she was drowning in this time was nothing but herself.

She fumbled for her phone with shaky fingers, not sure where she’d left it, and too exhausted to get to her bag which had fallen out of her limp hand right next to the entrance door. The phone was in the pocket of her jacket that she hadn’t bothered to take off. It took her three tries to unlock it, but her fingers found the right speed dial button easily, too easily almost. Her mind was racing and still at once, pictures floating in and out of it without her control, but it knew what call to make, did it on autopilot. Emily stood next to herself and watched as the pathetic, curled up figure on the floor (black hair, black clothing, black soul) pressed the phone to her ear. Tears built behind her eyelids that were pressed shut so firmly she saw stars. Emily Prentiss didn’t cry.

“Emily?”

JJ’s voice bled through the speakers, distorted and metallic, but still soothing, so soothing that Emily’s hands stopped to shake and her breathing calmed. A single tear leaked out of her eye, running down her cheek, leaving behind a hot trail of relief.

“Emily, are you alright?” JJ sounded worried; tired, too, but mostly worried. Emily could hear her fumbling around, heard the rustle of blankets, the sound of naked feet on a wooden floor.

“JJ,” she croaked out. More wasn’t possible, her throat was made of sandpaper and the words in her mind were all jumbled up.

“Emily, are you alright?” JJ repeated, more firmly this time. Her voice was light water on Emily’s throat, like a blanket around her body, like a pillow under her head. It soothed her. JJ was the only person Emily could be weak in front of, the only person in the entire world.

She broke, and her chest heaved as sobs and words broke out of her, incomprehensible, broken, raspy; tears streamed down her cheeks, and she didn’t wipe them away. JJ’s voice from the other side of the line sounded alarmed, strained. For a moment, a corner of Emily’s mind that hadn’t been sucked into the deadly hurricane inside her head, wondered if she was crying, too.

“It’s okay,” she said, and she repeated it a million times, until Emily couldn’t tell the words apart anymore, and simply listened, listened to the warm words, to the sunlight that streamed out of her speaker. Her breathing calmed, and her sobs subsided. Her mind was empty, quiet.

“I’m coming over,” JJ announced. Emily heard the rustling of wind, and a door closing. A car was started with squealing brakes. “Don’t worry, Emily. I’ve got you. Promise. I’ve got you.”

When the car stopped, Emily heard it through the phone, through JJ’s constant stream of soothing words, and she heard it outside her window, heard the door slamming shut almost violently outside. JJ was sunshine, but sunshine could be dangerous too, fierce and brutal. JJ never felt like a danger to Emily, though. JJ felt like home.

The blonde woman let herself in with the spare key she had, and only hung up when she was crouched down right next to Emily, holding her until she stopped shivering, radiating warmth and strength and calm and constantly. Whispers reached her ear, words that promised light.

Emily Prentiss hadn’t been taught to easily believe what people said, but JJ had broken down her walls on very first sight.

None of them could tell how long they were crouched down on the floor, in utter darkness and bitter cold that they didn’t feel because they were pressed together with not even an inch of space between them, but it was so late, and Emily was so tired. Her eyelashes fluttered as calmness spread inside her, as JJ’s voice instead of blood ran through her veins, golden like honey, shining like stars.

“Let’s take you to bed,” JJ whispered, noticing how Emily was only inches away from falling asleep.

“Don’t leave,” Emily begged in a broken voice, and her hands grabbed JJ’s sweatshirt so hard that her knuckles went white, and tears built up behind her eyes again. “Please, don’t leave.”

“I’m going to stay with you, I promise. I won’t leave you, Emily. I’ll come with you.” Slowly, JJ stood up, pulling Emily with her, one hand on the woman’s damp cheek, the other holding her arm, supporting her. Emily followed, stumbling along with uncertain steps. Her vision was too blurry to see where she was going, and her apartment wasn’t enough of a home for her to know her way around blind. They reached the bedroom, and Emily’s feet were heavy as was her heart. She fell onto the bed that had only been made in a rush, and barely noticed how JJ stripped her clothes off and found a T-shirt for her to sleep in. She didn’t noticed how JJ changed her own clothes as well because the comforting whispers never ceased and her eyes were closed.

Emily Prentiss had wanted her co-worker for so long, craved JJ’s sweetness, craved her strength, but this night, she didn’t crave anything other from her than her voice.

It was JJ’s voice that had first made her fall in love.

It was JJ’s voice that made her fall in love over and over again.

They day she had met JJ, she had heard her voice at first, heard her talking from the corridor seconds that felt like years before her eyes had found the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen. The voice already, soft like feathers, but with a hidden strength underneath it, had made her breath hitch, had made her lose control over her body for the first time in years. Her legs had gone limp for a moment, and she was glad about sitting in the, although not comfortable, luckily stable chair that prevented them from giving in, prevented her from falling.

It had only prevented her from literally falling, but the moment she lay eyes on the magnificent face that belonged to the voice that made her dizzy, she fell, and she hadn’t stopped falling ever since, falling for the blonde angel.

Emily Prentiss had been taught not to give her heart away, but it had flown right out of her chest at JJ’s call.

She pressed her body against JJ’s, her head into JJ’s soft hand, soaking up every bit of warmth she could get, their bare skin touching, her face buried in JJ’s neck. Her breathing was calm, and when her heartbeat was faster that normally, this time it wasn’t out of fear.

Drowning. She was drowning in soft light and in oxygen and in gentle touches that had nothing sexual about them. She was drowning in JJ, and she knew that she wasn’t going to die, but for JJ, she gladly would’ve.

The words stopped for the first time since the call had begun, JJ’s voice ceased, and it shook Emily awake again, made her stir. JJ gently stroked her head. Her breathing was even, but her chest was tight. In the deafening silence, grey threatened to overtake Emily’s mind again, threatened to drown her despite JJ’s presence, despite JJ’s touch.

“I love you,” JJ said suddenly. She didn’t move away; they were pressed together, skin to skin, two thin shirts separating their hearts, thin skins. “Emily, I love you. You’re so beautiful. I’m in love with you. For god’s sake, I’ve been in love with you for so long.”

The words escaped from her mouth, quickly, almost slurred, as if they’d been waiting too long, hiding, forbidden to come out, and finally escaped, and there were so many of them and all she could do was repeat herself, over and over again, repeat the words that freed her from the burden of the secret that had been weighing on her chest, and he couldn’t say them often enough because Emily wasn’t moving away and they were pressed together and maybe she wouldn’t leave, wouldn’t run away.

Emily’s heart stopped, and her breathing hitched, and the parachute she’d painfully constructed to fall more slowly, to never reach the ground, broke. It was the sudden fall that took her breath away, made her head spin and her mind stop working.

JJ bit her lip when the words wouldn’t stop, forced them to stop, forced them not to leave her mouth because she needed to give Emily a chance to answer and she needed to breathe. The lack of oxygen made her head spin, but it could’ve also been Emily’s presence, Emily’s touch that intoxicated her more than any drug ever could.

“I love you, too,” Emily croaked out when she’d regained her breath after moments of silence that were only filled with the sound of their conjoined breathing. “Fuck, I love you so much.”

Warmth and colours and rays of golden light filled her heart and she could feel JJ exhaling in relief against her forehead and she could feel her own lips curling into a smile that match JJ’s and when they fell silent this time, the grey didn’t attempt to pull her back.

Emily Prentiss had been taught not to love, because it was in love that you could drown.

She hadn’t been taught that sometimes, the life vest was not control. The life vest was love.


End file.
